Monarchy and Incest in Renaissance England: Literature, Culture, Kinship, and Kingship (New Cultural Studies) - Hardcover

Boehrer, Bruce Thomas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0812231341 ISBN 13: 9780812231342

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992

Synopsis

In Monarchy and Incest in Renaissance England, Bruce Thomas Boehrer argues that a preoccupation with incest is built not the dominant social and cultural concerns of early modern England. Proceeding from a study of Henry III's divorce and succession legislation, through the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I, this work examines the interrelation between family politics and literary expression in and around the English royal court.

About this title

About the Author

Bruce Thomas Boehrer is Bertram H. Davis Professor of English at Florida State University. A life-long parrot fancier, he is the author of Parrot Culture: Our 2500-Year-Long Fascination with the World's Most Talkative Bird and The Fury of Men's Gullets: Ben Jonson and the Digestive Canal, both available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

From the Back Cover

In dissolving his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII claimed that Catherine's brief marriage to Henry's deceased brother, Arthur, had rendered the subsequent union incestuous. Henry's next marriage could be called incestuous as well, for Anne Boleyn's sister Mary had been the king's mistress before her. But early rumor hinted at an even darker incestuous connection between Henry and Anne; she was, some charged, not only the king's lover, but his illegitimate daughter. Monarchy and Incest in Renaissance England argues that a preoccupation with incest is built into the dominant social and cultural concerns of early modern England. Proceeding from a study of Henry VIII's divorce and succession legislation through the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I, this work examines the interrelation between family politics and literary expression in and around the English royal court. Boehrer contends that themes of incest appear irregularly and prominently in the imaginative literature of the period. Some fifty extant plays from 1559 to 1658 deal either explicitly or implicitly with the subject. Incest emerges as a structural motif in texts as diverse as The Faerie Queene and Paradise Lost, and figures at least implicitly in nondramatic works by Jonson, Chapman, Shakespeare, and others. Monarchy and Incest in Renaissance England explores the response to, and modification of cultural anxieties regarding family structure. It is a brilliant and original work that will be of interest to scholars and students of English Renaissance literature and history, as well as of cultural studies.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0812231341
• ISBN 13: 9780812231342
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224